The spectrum of distributed creativity: Tango dancing and its generative modalities.

Abstract

As scholars have recently emphasized, creativity is not restricted to the individual mind; it can happen in and through interaction. To evaluate the legitimacy of claims about “distributed creativity,” we propose a compare-and-contrast approach to Argentine tango. Tango is an improvisational leader–follower dance of a formally constrained kind, yet one that also allows for a range of modes of being creative together in real-time interaction. Six dance couples were filmed while improvising and subsequently interviewed. Based on video vignettes of a few seconds duration, we microgenetically reconstructed the embodied “give-and-take” between partners, from which creative trajectories emerge. The spectrum of cocreative modalities ranges from creativity realized in interaction, but bearing some mark of the individual, to creativity, in which the interaction itself becomes an operative mechanism. Cocreation can happen in forms guided by a single person, yet jointly executed (“leader creativity”), in subordinate spaces that provide for some individual creative autonomy within a collective dynamic, in parallel or additive creative interaction forms, but also in genuinely multiplicative forms in which self-organizing interaction dynamics become a powerful causal factor that leverages creativity. To accommodate these various modalities, we argue for a dynamic-systemic account, which looks at interdependencies between micro- and macrolevels. Our framework recognizes different degrees of creative autonomy within interaction; it hereby avoids a dichotomy between individualistic accounts and interactionism with a purely collective-level focus.

What affords being creative? Opportunities for novelty in light of perception, embodied activity, and imaginative skill

“…We have shown that moments that afford immediate creative action exist, but in others “the creative” is only the attribute of an extended practice. This suggests starting the analysis from affordance-mediated creative activity (Kimmel & Groth, 2023) rather than narrowly conceived “creative affordances.” This activity is always relative to multi-timescale engagement with the ecology, from which emergent system dynamics arise.…”

“…The affordance field that presents itself emerges "transactionally" and cannot be attributed to either of the individuals (cf. Kimmel & van Alphen, 2022). Since creative opportunities are caused by the reciprocal engagement a methodologically individualist analysis is inadequate.…”

“…To clarify how affordances mediate creativity we will now summarize two empirical studies: (a) a crafts context of human-material interaction and (b) a human-human interaction from a dance context (Kimmel & Groth, 2023; Kimmel & Hristova, 2021). For brevity’s sake we will bracket out methodological details and detailed process descriptions.…”

“…To recap, we have described how affordances orient the process in both its technical and its creative dimensions (for details, see Kimmel & Groth, 2023). Transient micro-affordances guide constant technical finessing and corrections, but a few among these also “spill over” into larger creative decisions.…”

“…A practitioner may trade high functionality for middling novelty or compromise in other ways, for example, when something seems aesthetically interesting in itself, yet clashes with the time budget or mismatches the chosen material. In particular, procedural constraints of correct stage order or maximal duration of actions, have a highly selective influence (Kimmel & Groth, 2023).…”